Help Stop Spam

[forextrader36]

I have 2 websites running cmsms and both generate very high amounts of spam.

I am not familiar with the procedures to minimise spam and would really appreciate any assistance.

Both sites have a "Contact Us" form using formbuilder and on one of the sites the email address is also displayed.

Any help on ways to minimise spam will be greatly appreciated.

[Jos]

For Formbuilder, you can use Captcha module or this honeypot method: https://www.cmscanbesimple.org/blog/hon ... ormbuilder

[Jo Morg]

(...) and on one of the sites the email address is also displayed.

Never, but NEVER, use an explicit email address on a public page... you can try to obfuscate it, and the methods vary (also in effectiveness), as for instance the Smarty method, or you can (as I have seen a few times) use an image instead of text... there are no foolproof methods though...

[applejack]

Re: Never, but NEVER, use an explicit email address on a public page.

Quite but do clients always listen...

Re: Formbuilder.

Type Input
Field Validation:
Match Regular Expression
Validation Regex:
/^$/
CSS class
hidden

[forextrader36]

Thank you all for the suggestions.

I am a little confused between the last suggestion by applejack and the honeypot method as they seem to contradict each other. One says 'Match Regular Expression' & the other says 'Doesn't Match Regular Expression' etc.

I am not clear on how to go about implementing these methods if anybody can offer any clear assistance.

I understand I would need to add an extra field to the form with field type as 'input', the rest I am unsure how to set up and which suggestion I should use?

[Rolf]

I am not clear on how to go about implementing these methods if anybody can offer any clear assistance

https://www.cmscanbesimple.org/blog/hon ... ormbuilder

[applejack]

I know my method works and I'm sure Rolf's does as well. Re Match and don't match, the expressions are different.

Just try one and see what happens.

[staartmees]

if it's just a simple contactform, use Rolf's Simple Form plugin. It has a built in honey pot anti-spam feature and also supports the Captcha module.
http://dev.cmsmadesimple.org/projects/simpleform

[forextrader36]

Ok guys, thanks all for your help. I have managed to implement the honeypot method into formbuilder succesfully

Some of the spam emails though I noticed don't seem to be coming through the contact form but direct to the email address, even on the website where I did not have the email address displayed. Not sure if there is any way I could filter out this spam too somehow?

[Dramatic]

[off-topic-ish] As soon as an email address is public - i.e. you have emailed people from it, it is vulnerable to spam. This is because sooner or later it will end up in the contacts list of someone with a compromised computer where some piece of malware is harvesting their contacts (especially if they use one of the more common email clients).
There is nothing your site can do to prevent this, as it is not involved in the process.
Solutions basically rely on filtering - either by your mail service provider (be that ISP, domain host or webmail company) and/or your mail client. Your provider has much more data on which to base filtering decisions, but probably gives you less control on strength of filter. With a good mail client you can develop sophisticated rules, although this can require god knowledge of how email works (and in some cases, knowledge of regex).
Good clients will offer Bayesian filters which learn from which messages you mark as spam and not spam
Whatever the case, you need to monitor your spam folder regularly. I have some accounts going through gmail, and recently noticed some false positives (legitimate mail getting tagged as spam and therefore not being forwarded to my mail client).